Help Amanda Browder and North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition Make ‘Future Phenomena’!

Hey all, Bad at Sportswoman and Brooklyn-based artist Amanda Browder, along with the North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (NbPac) are in the process of constructingFuture Phenomena, Browder’s temporary public art project sponsored by NbPac and the Brooklyn Arts Council. The goal is to create a fabric public art sculpture on the facade of a building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. In her description of the project, Amanda notes that “Greenpoint and Williamsburg are at the center of the current transformation of our economic life from mass consumption, with its end product of ever more degraded earth, water, and air, to one based on feedback, reuse, recycling…mass re-consumption. Greenpoint (bordered on the north by a waterway so polluted that it has rendered state and local governments catatonic) and Williamsburg are century-long experiments in the sustainability of urban life.

“The public display of art is a critical element in generating and focusing neighborhood responses of the realities of gentrification, ancient toxic waterways, and urban migration. Public art can bring life and awareness to static architectural objects but the “Future Phenomena” will be not only a spectacle of bright colors and flowing shapes, but also a social space for pedestrians, participants and residents. Into this space will flow work, materials, comments, all manner of human energy, to be recycled until the project vanishes, leaving behind a memory of the power of art to transform the mundane.”

If you live in the NYC area, you can help bring this immense, sewn artwork to life at three NbPac-hosted COMMUNITY SEWING DAYS. All of the details provided directly from the source can be found below….

Saturday, March 27th

St. Cecilia’s Convent (with Round Robin)

21 Monitor Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

12-4pm

Sunday, April 18th

Lutheran Church of the Messiah

129 Russell Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

2-5pm

Saturday, May 1st

St. Ann and Holy Trinity Church

157 Montague Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn

2-5pm

DONATE – Contribute your unused fabric to help make the piece! We are covering a building and we need a lot of materials! Looking for cotton, sheets, pants, and non-stretchy fabric, and sewing tools such as needles, thread, and scissors. We are also seeking to borrow sewing machines for just one day or donations of machines for the project. For questions or to arrange donations, send an email to anne.palermo@gmail.com with “NbPac” in the subject header.

CUT – Help cut fabric to form the chevron shape which will make a true spectacle!

Claudine Isé has worked in the field of contemporary art as a writer and curator for the past decade, and currently serves as the Editor of the Art21 Blog. Claudine regularly writes for Artforum.com and Chicago magazine, and has also worked as an art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Before moving to Chicago in 2008, she worked at the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH as associate curator of exhibitions, and at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as assistant curator of contemporary art, where she curated a number of Hammer Projects. She has Ph.D. in Film, Literature and Culture from the University of Southern California.